page_title: Eastern Orthodoxy in Estonia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Eastern Orthodoxy in Estonia / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Alexander-Newski-Kathedrale in Tallinn (Estland) English: Alexander Newski Cathedral in Tallinn (Estonia) Русский: Александро-Невский собор в Таллине (Эстония)
context_page_description: Eastern Orthodoxy in Estonia is practiced by 16.5% of the population, making it the most identified religion and Christian denomination in this majority-secular state after surpassing Lutheran Christianity with 9.1% for first time in country's modern history. Eastern Orthodoxy, or more specifically Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is mostly practiced within Estonia's Russian ethnic minority and minority within native population. According to the 2000 Estonian census, 72.9% of those who identified as Orthodox Christians were of Russian descent.
  Today, there are two branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church operating in Estonia: the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, an autonomous church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate, a semi-autonomous church of the Russian Orthodox Church.
context_section_description: Orthodoxy was most likely first introduced in the 10th through 12th centuries by missionaries from Novgorod and Pskov active among the Estonians in the southeast regions of the area close to Pskov. The first mention of an Orthodox congregation in Estonia dates from 1030. Around 600 AD on the east side of Toome Hill (Toomemägi) the Estonians established the town Tarbatu (modern Tartu). In 1030, the Kievan prince, Yaroslav the Wise, raided Tarbatu and built his own fort called Yuryev, as well as, allegedly, a congregation in a cathedral dedicated to his patron saint, St. George. The congregation may have survived until 1061, when, according to chronicles, Yuryev was burned to the ground and the Orthodox Christians expelled.
  As a result of the Baltic Crusades in the beginning of the 13th century, northern Estonia was conquered by Denmark and the southern part of the country by the Teutonic Order and later by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and thus all of present-day Estonia fell under the control of Western Christianity. However, Russian merchants from Novgorod and Pskov were later able to set up small Orthodox congregations in several Estonian towns. One such congregation was expelled from the town of Dorpat (Tartu) by the Germans in 1472, who martyred their priest, Isidor, along with a number of Orthodox faithful (the group is commemorated on January 8).
  Little is known about the history of the church in the area until the 17th and 18th centuries, when many Old Believers fled there from Russia to avoid the liturgical reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church.
  In the 18th and 19th centuries, Estonia was part of the Imperial Russian Empire, having been ceded by the Swedish Empire in 1721 following its defeat in the Great Northern War.  During the 1800s, a significant number of Estonian peasants converted to the emperor's Orthodox faith in the (unfulfilled) hope of being rewarded with land. This led to the establishment of the diocese of Riga (in modern Latvia) by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1850.  In the late 19th century, a wave of Russification was introduced, supported by the Russian hierarchy but not by the local Estonian clergy.  The Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Tallinn and the Pühtitsa Convent in Kuremäe were built around this time.
caption: Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn, built at the end of the 19th century.
exif: {}